Happiest Millionaire, The

Suggested by the book My Philadelphia Father by Cordelia Drexel Biddle and Kyle Crichton

A successful run on Broadway. "Most charming…it is half-true and half-crazy, which is the proper way to organize things in this world." —NY News. "A happy play about a happy family." —NY Mirror. "…at once decent and amusing, which is an infrequent co…

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Pidgeon returns to the stage after a couple of centuries in Hollywood as Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Cordelia's enthusiastic but unpredictable father. He has a fine house at 2104 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, a fortune of one million dollars—not hay in 1917 because Woodrow Wilson had barely got into power—and a great enthusiasm for lunacy. He collects alligators and prizefighters and rules his family by bluster. Whenever the butler comes in, the butler inquires deferentially, "You yelled, sir?" Among those Pidgeon rules is his daughter, Cordelia, who falls in love with a southern boy, Angier Duke. Pidgeon tries to take over and run this romance, and for the first time in his noisy career he meets defeat. Mr. Biddle, who is an ardent amateur boxer, has no use for his prospective son-in-law because that young man knows nothing about boxing—but when Angier suddenly turns to jiu-jitsu and throws a professional prizefighter, as well as Mr. Biddle, to the floor, Biddle's heart is won, and he is resigned to losing his daughter.

"A successful run on Broadway. "Most charming…it is half-true and half-crazy, which is the proper way to organize things in this world." —NY News. "A happy play about a happy family." —NY Mirror. "…at once decent and amusing, which is an infrequent combination…Exuberant good humor." —NYTimes.